Detroit Safe Exploration Continues

Detroit Home Mysteries

Uncovered this mystery in the floor of the basement in a 90 year old house we are renovating in Detroit. Any guesses as to what's in there? Plan to crack it open tomorrow.

State upon our arrival

After a week or so of not being able to get access to this house due to renovation activity, we finally got back in. The floor safe has apparently become the low spot for contractors to piss in during construction. What we do for the thrill of the exploration!

Drilling hole through door

After previous attempts to saw the pins and jack hammer the concrete, we had to go to Plan C which was to drill a hole through the door and use a borescope to see what was inside.
Using a high-power drill and carbide drill bits, we punched through the 3+ inch door.

Pilot Hole

Initially drilled a 1/8" pilot hole, and then solely increased the diameter until we finally got a 1/2" hole for our 3/8" diameter borescope.

Scoping Configuration

Scope lights

The scope has good lighting that is adjustable. It also works under water which is what we needed.

Scope Insertion

With the USB connected to the laptop, we inserted the scope successfully into the safe. As we expected, the safe was full of water and construction workers urine (smell not pictured)

Scope In Action

With deft skill, we had to work the scope around to get a good image of the wall and floor of the safe. The scope is blurry until it gets within about 2 inches of an object.

Screen Capture of the Screen Capture

We could watch the results of the scope in real-time on the laptop. The scoping software was pretty crappy, but what do you expect for a $20 tool from Amazon Prime. You can see (beyond the reflection on the screen) that the bottom of the safe was covered in nothing but rusty particles